For nearly an hour John Dene sat at his table as Marjorie had left him, twirling in his mouth a half-smoked cigar that had not been alight since the early morning. His face was expressionless, but in his eyes there was a strange new light.
The next morning when Dorothy arrived at the office, she found Sir Bridgman North with John Dene, who was angry.
"Just because somebody's lost a spanner, or a screw-driver, they're raising Cain about it. Look at all these," and he waved a bunch of papers in front of Sir Bridgman.
"It's a way they have in the Navy. We never lose sight of anything."
"Except the main issue, winning the war," snapped John Dene.
"Oh, we'll get on with that when we've found the spanner," laughed Sir Bridgman good humouredly.
"I don't want to be worried about a ten cent spanner, and have a couple of letters a day about it," grumbled John Dene, "and I won't have it."
"What I used to do," said Sir Bridgman, "was just to tell them that everything possible should be done. Then they feel happier and don't worry so much. Why I once lost a 12-inch gun, and they were quite nice about it when I told them that somebody must have put it aside for safety, and that it had probably got mislaid in consequence. I never found that gun. You see, Dene," he added a moment later, "we indent everything—except an admiral, and it doesn't matter much if he gets lost."
John Dene grumbled something in his throat. He was still smarting under the demands from the Stores Department to produce forthwith the missing article.
"Now I must be off," said Sir Bridgman, and with a nod to John Dene and a smile to Dorothy he departed.